


covered in blood and dirt

by royalwisteria



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: F/M, contains vague descriptions of violence and gore, rated for violence for caution's sake, world war two au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-21
Updated: 2014-10-21
Packaged: 2018-02-22 00:44:44
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,739
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2488166
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/royalwisteria/pseuds/royalwisteria
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears and sweat. - Winston Churchill.</p>
<p>bellamy and clarke and world war two</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. bellamy

bellamy enlisted when he was 18. he walked into the office the morning of his birthday; his sister cried and his mom hugged him too tight and he knew he wasn’t going to see them again when he left. but he was okay with this. ‘it’s the greater good,’ he tells them, ‘someone’s gotta set hitler right.’ octavia punches him with tears in her eyes and he lets her.

he starts in africa and moves north, through italy, and further. he doesn’t know what he’s doing, except that his gun is a part of him, and the people in his unit are his family now. finn is an ass, monty and jasper are too soft-hearted, and— people die. bellamy learned this with a gun in his hands, bullets shooting forward, but it’s hard when first atom dies, then jasper. monty is desolate, but bellamy picks him up and keeps them moving. three years pass and he’s not 18 anymore, and he’s sick of war, but war is not sick of him.

he’s wounded in a stupid skirmish and he’s taken to the first aid tent. the nurse’s front is covered in blood, her blonde hair has mud embedded down to the roots, and her hands don’t shake as she digs the bullet out of his shoulder. ‘it missed bone, which is good,’ she mutters while binding it up with sharp, tugging movements. it’s a dirty cloth, and staring at it and then glancing back to bellamy’s face, she adds, ‘it’s the best we have.’

bellamy smiles back, replies with ‘you’re terribly pretty’ and feels on top of the world when she laughs.

'if your type is covered in blood and dirt, i suppose i am. get better soon, soldier.' he asks her name and is gratified with an answer: clarke. he flirts outrageously with her when he's in the first-aid tent. she laughs, but flirts back, as though they both need this release. she kisses him on the cheek when he is discharged.

he thinks that he’s fighting for people like her and that his job is important, but so is hers. he wants to know her story too; he wants to know everyone’s story. they all have them. after d-day, when they’re in france and liberating towns, he wonders about these people’s stories. he had a french friend in school and he uses what he knows to chat to the locals.

he wonders where clarke is; in his mind, her hands are dirty with blood and dirt and dressed all in red. she checked his bandage several times the few days after the original bandaging, asking about infection, but she has taken on the role of an avenging angel. he thinks he’s still fighting for her and wonders what, or who, finn and monty are fighting for. he thinks monty is fighting for jasper, for their family killed on the plains of europe and africa, and finn fights for a bloody peace.

bellamy came to war thinking he wouldn’t survive and each night he falls asleep he is surprised he wakes up still alive. he knows the smell of blood intimately and he doesn’t remember his mom’s home-cooking. he is either too hot or too cold or too sweaty or shivering or— he learns to be uncomfortable 100 percent of the time and uncomfortable becomes comfortable.

the war ends. he will always remember the french landscape, dotted with fires and smoke and blackened vehicles, the number of bodies, the stench that they created everywhere they went. he is wounded and he believes it’s a miracle that he meets clarke again.

she doesn’t remember him. her hands shake a little and there are more lines on her face than there were before.

'how old are you?' he asks. 'you should smile more.'

'there's not much to smile about,' she says. 'you'll have a limp for the rest of your life.'

'we won the war. hitler is dead.'

her hands shake more. ‘at what cost?’ she asks him, eyes dead rather than watery. ‘how many have died? why is war—’

'clarke,' he interrupts. 'i never thought i'd get to see my family again. i thought i would die here.'

she looks down at him. his leg hurts, but he was lucky again; it went through the meaty part of his thigh and yes, he won’t walk straight again, but he has his leg, the war has been won, he’s alive.

'let me take you out on a date.'

clarke squints, then smiles a small smile. ‘i remember you. you called me beautiful.’

'you still are,' he adds, though her hands aren't as bloody as he remembers, and her clothes are a mixture of white and faded reddish pink splotches. 'and i'd like to take you out on a date. since i'm alive and all.'

'alright,' she says. 'my name is clarke griffin. find me in america.'

—

bellamy limps off a bus in wisconsin a year later. he has gone to fifteen other clarke griffin’s in the country, but he is not down heartened. he whistles as he goes down the street, nodding at the locals who nod respectfully at him. he asks for directions and knocks on the door of a large, victorian house. a tall woman answers, smiling expectantly at him.

'i'm looking for a miss clarke griffin,' he says politely, doffing his hat. 'is she here?”

she squints suspiciously at him. ‘are you that soldier boy?”

'i don't think i'm much of a boy anymore, ma'am.'

a half-smile flits across her face. ‘she’s in the back. go on around.’

she’s lying underneath a tree, the skirt of her dress spread around her, eyes closed. her hair is blonde, but she is clean. her hands are pale, fingernails clipped neatly; her eyelashes are long and he can see the rise and fall of her chest as she breathes.

'excuse me, are you miss clarke griffin? i've been looking for her.'

her eyes open and he thinks he recognizes those blue eyes. ‘are you my soldier?’

'i hope to be.'

she smiles. ‘how’s the leg?’

he shrugs and awkwardly sits down next to her. she sits up, arms propping herself up behind her. her hair cascades down her back, curling and so clean. ‘i’m alive.’

'yes, you are,' she replies and takes his hand in hers. he holds it with both of his, rubbing his fingers over calluses that haven't gone away yet.

'you probably don't know this, but you kept me alive in france.'

'i'm glad,' she whispers, scooting closer and leaning her head on his shoulder. 'i'm so glad.'


	2. clarke

her grandfather fought in world war one and her father fought at the beginning of the war. they both died fighting. clarke’s not a fighter, not like them; she’s more like her mother, with steel in her veins, good at bandaging wounds, tagging along with her mother on her doctorly visits because their doctor was drafted. when her best friend and first love wells signs up, she signs with the red cross. her mother does not cry, does not even ask her to come back alive, but makes sure she has warm things and that she knows she’s loved.

clarke is glad to leave wisconsin behind her, the dust bowl, the agricultural collapse of america, but europe is a different landscape. it is a nightmare, more so than she ever imagined, and she throws up every day her first month. the _smells_ — there was one farmer who needed his leg amputated because of a tractor incident and infection, but this is worse. there are flies, there is infection, there is blood everywhere and her food tastes metallic no matter what she eats.

the other nurses have grim senses of humor. roma is the worst, a straight face and jokes that are less jokes than bloody narratives, but anya tells her about how they treated her brother and her husband and her father and how they all died. clarke doesn’t know how to deal with the information.

she stops throwing up. food is not something to enjoy; even back in wisconsin, food was a process, difficult to create well. she moves with the front line, binding bullet wounds, taking shrapnel out, treating burns as best she can and moving on. their supplies are meager at the best of times and, at the worst of times, she ends up tearing strips off the clothes her mother sent her off with.

the winters are hard, because there’s nothing to do with the bodies with frozen ground, but clarke learns to detest summer in france. the smell is worse than ever. infections are worse. the humidity is terrible. clarke hated war from the beginning, but starts to despair when she finds out about wells’ death. people die, clarke knows, because she knew people who were dead, but nothing like this.

her hands are steady, a gift from her mother that never fails, as she takes the bullet out of yet another soldier. they are mostly faceless to her; attachment is bad in the first aid station. her family are her nurses, with roma who sometimes sneaks her chocolate from her rations, and anya who is a bulwark of strength. it is not good to get close to the soldiers she meets, because the death rate is too high for that.

but he calls her terribly pretty. clarke hasn’t been called pretty, beautiful, complimented since she and wells were fourteen and he presented her with a bouquet of wildflowers. they were supposed to get married when they grew up, and clarke grew up believing that, but this— this soldier—

'if your type is covered in blood and dirt, i suppose i am. get better soon, soldier,' she tells him. the dress from her mother is down to rags and everything she owns has either blood all over it or smells of it.

his name is bellamy and, despite herself, she reacts to his flirting. the bandage was not a clean cloth, but he miraculously doesn’t become infected and anya warns her with worried eyes and roma tells her to be careful with nearly dead eyes, but clarke can’t help but become attached to this soldier. his hair is caked with mud and she helps him clean it out, to scrub his skin clean of dirt and blood. he offers to help her wash as well with a lascivious smile and she laughs and pushes him into the stream. he squawks, and clarke hasn’t felt somewhat happy in months, since the war began.

she kisses his cheek when he is discharged and hopes that he lives. hope is silly, clarke thinks, but hope sustains her through the succeeding months. she is at d-day and nightmares begin; the sheer number of bodies, the number of wounded, of nazis and of allied forces, makes her cry. what is war for? she asks anya as they don’t sleep for the successive week. why do people need to die? what is the purpose of life if we’re to spend it fighting?

her father sent her such letters. clarke is like her mother, but she supposes she takes after her father in such ways. maybe she’s like her grand-father too. they are the three generations of griffin’s who have gone to war, if for different reasons and in different positions. she was never sure if she was going to live through this, because everyone in the war is likely to die, but as the days continue to pass and her nightmares become worse, she thinks she might.

clarke isn’t sure she wants to. she’s not sure she can live with the weight of souls whose bodies she wasn’t able to save. how does one go on after experiencing horror upon horror? even when news of the end of the war reaches her, clarke doesn’t quite believe it. there is no end to the war, not for her. this will haunt her. her food will always taste slightly metallic, the scent of blood and infection and rotting bodies will always follow her. she will have nightmares about how her hands aren’t fast enough, the blood is everywhere, of amputating limbs and not binding tight enough and a soldier dying from blood loss.

there is no such thing as the end of war.

her gift from her mother fails her, in the end, because her veins are no longer full of steel, her hands shake, and she doesn’t know why she even came her anymore. there are lives she has saved, but there are those she failed.

'how old are you?' the soldier whose thigh she's binding says. 'you should smile more.'

'there's not much to smile about,' she says, thinking of wells, her father, the soldier who died in her arms that morning. 'you'll have a limp for the rest of your life.’

'we won the war. hitler is dead.'

hitler being dead does not mean the war has been won. she thinks of her grand-father; that war was won, but there were thousands who were lost. ‘at what cost?’ she asks. ‘how many have died? why is war—’

he interrupts her. ‘clarke, i never thought i’d get to see my family again. i thought i would die here.’

his leg is a bloody mess, a wound that silently seeps blood. there are not enough bandages for her to properly bind it, so she ends up ripping up more of her clothes. she hopes to never wear this dress again. she wants to see the dust bowl again, the great plains, see the old victorian that her great-grand-father built and that her mother fills with flowers.

this man will not walk again, his thigh is too badly wounded, but he is alive. he’s right. 'let me take you out on a date.'

she looks up at him and— it is hope, again, in her chest, filling her up. ‘i remember you,’ she says, scarcely believing it. ‘you called me beautiful.’

'you still are,' he says. her hand goes to her hair and she probably leaves a streak of blood or dirt in it, but he's looking at her like she is precious porcelain. she's not, though, she is not fragile. she is more like a precious gemstone, maybe, or a sword, forged in fire and molded to a form, but that doesn't seem right. she is simply a young woman with nightmares, covered in blood and dirt.

bellamy promises her he’ll find her and then she goes home.

—-

her mother welcomes her home with open arms and tears. ‘wells died,’ her mother tells her.

'i know,' clarke replies. 'i was there.'

her mother steps away, hands on her shoulders. ‘you’re different.’

'war changes people,' she says tiredly. 'can i sleep?'

her bed is too comfortable, and so she takes the blanket and falls asleep on the floor. she sleeps on the floor until her nightmares causes her mother to find out about the habit. she never accustomizes to a soft bed.

weeks pass and she tells her mother about bellamy and her mother scoffs at the promises soldiers make in the midst of a war, but clarke has so little to hold onto that she refuses to give up hope. he will come, she tells herself, but in december, her belief starts to wilt. she tries to help her mom, but doesn’t know how to handle having proper supplies anymore. the bandages are white, fresh, clean, infection isn’t as common, no one knows what dead bodies smell like. there is no need to pile them together.

her nightmares never get better.

but in may, he appears. she is lying beneath the large oak tree, a remnant of the great-grand-father, of whom she has inherited more from than her grandfather or father. it is her soldier, come to take her on a date, and she smiles up at him.

he doesn’t look the same without dirt and blood on his face, but she thinks she might love him all the same.

'you kept me alive in france,' he tells her.

'i'm glad,' she tells him. 'i'm so glad.' his hands are tanned, like his skin, there is no stubble on his face. he looks young, but then again, they are both physically young. mentally, emotionally, she knows they are both older.

'you are my hope for happiness,' she tells him when he proposes. 'i would not be here if not for you.'

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> both chapters originally posted on my tumblr and decided to post them here for posterity's sake i guess


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